Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010) is an expertly told story of obsessive creativity and the pursuit of perfection. This becomes the backdrop to portray the larger theme, an overpowering desire for excellence, and the price of perfection. The Swan Queen, the lead role in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, is a role that everyone yearns to play in the world of ballet. A battle begins within Nina Sayers, the film's main character, to harness the qualities needed to dance the Swan Queen. Both innocence and purity, and darkness and sensuality are required to play this coveted part.
Nina’s desperation for the role of Swan Queen is seen in the film from the beginning. Beth Macintyre was Nina’s role model and the former swan queen. Nina steals her belongings with a desire to replace her since she thought she was perfect and aspired to be like her.
Even though the play’s director, Thomas believed that Nina would be perfect for the white swan, he conceded that she lacked the confidence and passion needed to dance the black swan. Her desperation to achieve perfection only progresses after she gets the part of the swan queen.
The pressure of wanting to be better than Beth and the fear of ending up like her mother drove Nina to a point where she resorts to self-mutilation. Nina’s suffering slowly turned her into a darker, more risque version of herself. Aronofsky, taking from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, explores the duality of the human mind by portraying how the black swan slowly corrupts Nina’s mind. Nina spends much time standing in front of a mirror and staring at her reflection. Mirrors have been used metaphorically to create unsettling visuals and show her evil side.
Nina’s disordered relationship with her mother explains her mental illness. Erica constantly feels the need to restrict Nina’s movements and social interactions. The reason behind this could be that she knows about Nina’s paranoia and instability, which justifies her being overprotective of Nina. At the same time, Erica cries alone in her room after Nina is made the Swan Queen. Aronofsky successfully depicts how Erica was consumed by envy and self-pity, which led to her constantly living vicariously through Nina’s ballet career.
Black Swan treads carefully on the boundary between reality and delusion. Nina has a sexual fantasy about Lily, but it ends with Lily’s face morphing into her own victoriously. Her fragility and low self-worth cannot bring her to believe that she is capable of being loved. She believes that only perfection can make her worthy of love. Her delusions convince her that Lily is trying to replace her. Lily was to Nina what Nina was to Beth, embodying the continuous cycle of being tossed aside for the new better version. It is also a universally poignant comment on women in the workplace, and how, more often than not, they’re trying to one-up each other.
As the movie's final act approaches, after Nina botches her performance as the white swan, she is confronted by Lily in her dressing room. Seeing her dressed as the black swan infuriates Nina so much so that she stabs Lily with a shard of the broken mirror, killing her. What follows is Nina’s metamorphosis into the black swan. She sheds her old skin and transforms into the terrifying figure of a swan woman. This serves as a metaphor for her rebirth and perfectionism. Nina discovers that she had hallucinated stabbing Lily after running into her once more, this time in reality. What takes Nina by surprise, and ultimately causes her death, is learning that she had stabbed her haunting alter-ego.
Although Nina’s story is a tale of obsession and self-inflicted pain, it also serves as a vivid example of a tendency found within all human beings. By default, we are built to allow our self-centered desires to consume us. In the case of Nina, all she cares about is that she felt it: perfection.
Exceptionally wonderful jot Maher 💕💕proud of you❤️💕